RTC date problem

[YuryG]

Probably I messed with something during FreeBSD installation or with locale settings but now after each reboot clock jumps back (timezone)-hours.
I'm on +07 timezone, so each time clock jumps back seven hours.
What is worse, my network has port 123 blocked, so ntpd can't synchronise time.

Where to look for this problem to solve?

 

[SirDice]

What is worse, my network has port 123 blocked

Outgoing? Or incoming? Incoming might be blocked, but that's not relevant. Why would an ISP block outgoing NTP? Or is this a company network? Don't they have a central local time server on the network you could use?

Where to look for this problem to solve?

Run tzsetup(8), see if that fixes it.

I'm on +07 timezone, so each time jums back seven hours.

Are you dualbooting with another OS perhaps? If one OS assumes the clock is set to UTC and the other OS assumes it's "local time" then you can get those jumps too.

 

[mer]

Are you dualbooting with another OS perhaps? If one OS assumes the clock is set to UTC and the other OS assumes it's "local time" then you can get those jumps too.

I think Windows assumes clock is set to local wall time, whereas every sane OS assumes UTC.

 

[YuryG]

Outgoing? Or incoming? Incoming might be blocked, but that's not relevant. Why would an ISP block outgoing NTP?

Run tzsetup(8), see if that fixes it.


Are you dualbooting with another OS perhaps? If one OS assumes the clock is running UTC and the other OS assumes it's "local time" then you can get those jumps too.

As far as I can see, port 123 blocked both ways (doesn't NTP require it both ways?). It's corporate network, which has strange ports policy, only recently they opened FTP port. All Windows machines in the network has desynchronized clocks also.

I've run tzsetup and it shows right timezone.
No dual booting here.

 

[YuryG]

I think Windows assumes clock is set to local wall time, whereas every sane OS assumes UTC.

I used to set it to local time, doing so it's usual time even in BIOS setup.

 

[SirDice]

As far as I can see, port 123 blocked both ways (doesn't NTP require it both ways?)

It only requires incoming if you want to be a time server for other hosts yourself.

All Windows machines in the network has desynchronized clocks also.

Having synchronized clocks is pretty essential nowadays. Especially with Windows and ADS using Kerberos for authentication. SSL/TLS can also be problematic if the clocks are too far apart. I'm not even going to mention the horror with debugging when timestamps in logs are not lining up.

whereas every sane OS assumes UTC.

FreeBSD's tzsetup(8) suggests "local time" if you're not sure if the clock is set to UTC.

 

[mer]

Corporate network, systems get IP via DHCP? Is there an option in DHCP to specify timeservers, resulting in "all systems on the corporate network use the same internal timeservers which makes debugging system problems easier"?
From a host, can one ping something like 0.pool.ntp.org on port 123? That would indicate outbound is truly blocked.
There are ntp commands that can show configuration/connectivity. ntpq I think for base ntp, ntpctl for openntpd from ports.

 

[SirDice]

Is there an option in DHCP to specify timeservers, resulting in "all systems on the corporate network use the same internal timeservers which makes debugging system problems easier"?

There is, option 042. Unfortunately, FreeBSD's ntpd(8) won't use it, nor any other NTP client as far as I'm aware of.

And I believe if you don't configure anything specific your domain controllers are going to act as time sources for the domain members. Because you don't want to be out of sync when using kerberos authentication. But I'm not a Windows administrator. I have to work with it for interoperability reasons, but that's about it. I try to steer clear of anything "admin" related on Windows.

That's something you could try though, if you know which servers are the domain controller, then fire off a NTP request to one of them, simple to do on the command line; ntpdate -q <host>. That will query the <host> and tell you how far off your time is compared to <host>, or error if it doesn't have NTP enabled there.

 

[YuryG]

We have out of sync time all over the organisation.
The most ridiculous are network printers/scanners (without RTC in them) showing "time from network" somewhere from 1989 in file creation dates.
So I am not aware of any time source on the network.

And what can be done with time jumps on my FreeBSD machine when restarted? Where it happens and how to fix it?

 

[mer]

Restart time jumps I think is usually related to ntpdate service (designed to make a big jump once) or ntp service (I think base ntp client can be configured to do a big jump on start)

On your freebsd machine, output of "service -e | grep -i ntp"? That would let us know what you are configured/enabled for.

 

[bakul]

sudo touch /etc/wall_cmos_clock See adjkerntz(8)